A full week of astrophotography in the Haute-Alpes, France

August 18, 2013 • 1 Comment

I just spent a week down at Olly Penrice's astronomy mecca in Southern France. Crazy me drove down with all of my gear (the whole trip both ways and what driving we did during the day down there totaled 2100 miles!) and much to Olly's amusement set up my "portable" kit on his pad, desktop computer and all.

It was an absolutely gorgeous week and I got somewhere around 46.5 hrs of data total on 5 separate targets plus a few Milky Way shots with my DSLR on a tripod as I sat and watched the meteor shower and enjoyed the clear summer evenings. I do have some meteor widefields I have yet to stack and process as well as some more Milky Way shots, but here is the one I have done that I like the most.

I started on vdb126 as I love dark nebula regions and rarely image them. I did this for part of the first night and then moved on. It needed (and still does) some more data, but I had other priorities for most of the imaging time and just wanted something to show for this region.

Over the next 6 nights I worked on the remaining targets depending on where they were along the southern horizon, the slowly increasing moon, and how much data I had gotten on them yet. Here are the images I got over the week. I have a little more integrating and work to do on a few of them, but they are mostly processed.

Helix Nebula (LHaRGB):

Cocoon Nebula (LHaRGB):

Trifid Nebula (LRGB):

NGC 6559 (LRGB):

All were taken with my Orion EON80ED scope, Atik 314L+ camera, and Astronomik Filters while being piggybacked on my CPC800XLT on a wedge. More integration time details are available on my website although some of the time on the Helix I have stacked with a few other subs I got at a star party a while back which added to the 46.5 hour total from this week by 4 hrs making 50.5hrs for these 5 images. Could not have been a more perfect astrophotography week by my standards and it was nice to get the scope out and running again as it has just been collecting dust for the past 5 months or so as other things have taken priority. Well worth the year it took to book, plan, and actually get down to these amazing dark skies for a whole week of nothing but astrophotography by night and touring around the wonderful little towns in the area, hiking, and shopping during the day!

Blogging fell by the wayside

April 12, 2012 • Leave a Comment

I have been incredibly busy since Christmas and unfortunately forgot to make any posts as a result. I have done some astrophotography and enjoyed the few clear nights England provided. Here are a few of the objects I imaged over the last few months:

vdb14 was a bit of a challenge for me. It is a faint bit of nebulosity in the constellation Camelopardalis. You don't see many images of it so I wasn't quite sure the orientation the camera should be in initially but that was sorted after one sub. The main problem is my scope/image train does not necessarily like broadband emissions, and in particular the blue wavelength. I get bloated stars on all blue and Luminance frames which make processing especially difficult. This is the reason I tend to stick to narrowband images for the time being. Despite these issues, I was thrilled with how it turned out.

vdb14

The all-too-familiar Horsehead Nebula. I hadn't imaged this since I first began astrophotography and thought it about time I hit it again. I wanted to get the depth and detail that Hydrogen-alpha provided but also not lose the blue reflection nebaul below the HH. As always in this region, keeping Alnitak (off frame to left) from ruining the photo is always a fun challenge. I think I managed to succeed fairly well with this final result.

Horsehead Nebula

I also decided I wanted to try out a few more planetary nebulas. I only got one managed with out few clear nights but it provided enough of a challenge. I shot it in narrowband so have no star colors, something which I would like to eventually remedy, but the depth and detail of the Owl Nebula itself made me happy. This is an easy nebula to have washed out and not get any of the inner detail/stars. It was a processing challenge to keep that and bring out the rarely seen outer OIII halo, but I am always up for a challenge (even if I do not always succeed). Here was the final result, although I do wish to revisit this in RGB to add some star colors and perhaps better nebula color as well.

M97 - Owl Nebula

I don't do many galaxies, mainly due to the blue bloat I mentioned earlier but am trying to expand my repertoire and so had a crack at M106 in RGB. A slew of new processing techniques and new "beta" actions I created helped me out with this one and although I had to do alot of work to keep the color manageable (esp in the blue wavelength) I think it paid off:

M106

And now to end on something in our solar system. I got a Philips SPC900NC webcam and a Televue 3x barlow to start to learn planetary imaging. Man, its tricky! I did manage to finally get Mars looking like Mars and will call that a successful planetary attempt even though it isn't the greatest and is still very grainy. Hopefully I will have more and will probably have a whole blog on planetary imaging at some point.

Mars - 29 Mar 2012

For the British winter, I did manage a decent amount of astrophotos among everything else I was doing, to check out more see my website at http://www.eprisephoto.com/astrophotography.

Hopefully will have a proper blog post soon!

Parfocal filter test #1

December 05, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I always wondered this, but as I didn't have a motorized filter with readable steps (until now) I wasn't able to do any testing on my filters previously. Since the moon is lovely and bright tonight killing most of my imaging plans I figured I would do some focus tests with my new Moonlite focuser. After letting the scope cool to the nice chilly evening (whilst my toes froze nice and solid as well) I ran through my Astronomik set (LRGB and Ha,SII,OIII) and not only did FocusMax's "focus" button but then dug around a few steps each way to find the best focus for each filter. Happy to say that the "focus" button on FocusMax got the focus within 1-2 steps of best focus so gotta say that I am happy to use the automated routine in the future.

Now for the results.
Filter set: Astronomik Type IIC broadband and narrowband filters
Scope: Orion EON80ED
Camera for testing: Atik 314L+
Moonlite Focuser
Filter Wheel: Atik EFW2
Camera temp: -20C
Ambient temp at time of test: 3.3C

Position at "best" focus for each filter at time of testing:
Lum: 10681
Red: 10679
Green: 10676
Blue: 10719
Ha: 10683
SII: 10686
OIII: 10683

All in all, I say that is pretty good (except for the blue filter of course, which I knew already had issues) ... All others were within 5 steps of each other with the Luminance being pretty well centered between them. I am happy to see how close to parfocal all 3 narrow bands are and how close they are to the Luminance.

With that said, I do have an Astrodon LRGB set on the way and will be interested to see how they perform (at the moment I am staying with the Astronomik NB as I have been happy with them but the Blue on my Astronomik set drives me nuts and if I am gonna change one might as well get the whole set. Once they arrive I plan on doing the same test with them as well and will post those results.

After a few more rounds of testing I will have a reliable focus offset for each filter so I can add that to my automated routine, which should make automated routines easier to setup.

Addition: I got out today and pulled out the caliper to do some measuring.
On my system, the Moonlite Focuser moves 16 microns/step (determined by multiple tests by moving the focuser 100, 250, 500, 1000 steps multiple times and measuring the distance moved/#steps and averaged out the #, although almost all of the measurements were right at 16 so any differences were likely user error on the caliper)

Next, some math to determine the critical focus zone (CFZ).
Formula: CFZ=4.88*λ*f ²
Where λ is the wavelength of light and f(squared) is the focal ratio of the system squared.

So, for my f/6.25 system the CFZ is:
Red: 124 microns
Green: 97 microns
Blue: 91 microns

Based on the measurements I did that showed each step was 16 microns, the CFZ in steps for each color (rounded down) is:
Red: 7 steps
Green: 6 steps
Blue: 5 steps

Not a lot of room for error, only 2-3 steps on either side of the focus point. Makes me even happier that I got the motorized focuser as finding that 91-127 micron sweet spot by hand was exceedingly difficult (even with a Bahtinov mask)

Note: These tests are done on my actual imaging system, not an "ideal" test setup. I find it hard to find results on average setups as "tests" are generally done on apochromatic scopes and very high-end equipment. That is why I like to share my test results on my modest equipment. These are not "scientific" and are done just as I state. I do them for others who have modest setups and would like to find results on setups similar to their own.

Beta Actions available for testing

November 04, 2011 • Leave a Comment

I have a few actions up for beta testing. I will do this occasionally as I am developing some for Annie's Astro Actions or just for my own personal use in processing (which is how these came about). I am considering adding them to the action set, but for now they are up for free for anyone willing to test them out and send me their thoughts/problems/suggestions.

In this first beta set are three actions: Hubble Palette Creation, Deconvolve, & Boost Star Color.
To read a short description of them and to download, please go to the new "Beta Action" page, coated here: http://www.eprisephoto.com/beta-actions . . . please remember to send me your notes if you download them!

Thanks!

Nikon D7000 for astrophotography: Review

October 19, 2011 • Leave a Comment

Note: This review can be downloaded as a pdf at: http://www.eprisephoto.com/nikon-d7000.pdf

Although my first astrophotos were taken with a DSLR I quickly steered clear of DSLR astrophotography for a few reasons. First, I use my camera (at the time a Nikon D40) for my regular photography jobs and therefore was not going to get it “astro-modded”. Second, it was beyond noisy. Rather than having a field of stars with a few hot pixels, images were coming out as a field of hot pixels resembling a children’s paint splatter painting with a few stars and perhaps a galaxy thrown in for good measure. Dark frames helped, but even proper calibration only did so much for the overly noisy images. Third, I found a used ccd camera for a good deal and after trying it out once, despite the limited FOV from a small chip, found it much better in terms of image quality and lack of noise. I see fantastic results from DSLRs so I know it can be done, but my few experiences had been nothing more than an exercise in frustration. Fast forward a few years and I found myself upgrading to a Nikon D7000 camera. At the time, I had no thoughts of resuming DSLR astrophotography when I purchased it, but after a few months I decided to give it a go.

Testing out the D7000:

After attaching the D7000 to my scope and setting up the DSLR-USB IR sensor so I could set up a sequence via the computer I set about focusing. The D7000 has “Live View” which I was going to use for focus but once I switched to it I realized that while I could see the star I wanted to focus on, it was going to be too dim to accurately focus. I was able to get it close but then switched the live view off, put on the Bahtinov mask, and took a 2 second exposure. It was close enough that it only took me a few moments to fine tune the focus and lock the scope. I found the guide lines in the viewfinder when the shutter is pressed (which light up a dim red) very useful for framing my intended target of the night, M31. I set my ccd up as an autoguider and set “DSLR Shutter” (the program I use on the computer to control the IR sensor on the DSLR-USB IR to take a 10 min exposure and ... nothing. No shutter click to let me know the image had begun. I had the menu settings to “Quick Response Remote” but the D7000 has a roll bar underneath the left selector wheel (where you select M for manual, Auto, etc) that you also have to roll over to the remote picture. Once I had done that, I reset “DSLR Shutter” and off it went. 10 minutes later I checked the result and was pleasantly surprised. At ISO400 (I kept the ISO fairly low since the moon was going to be coming up soon and because I was used to a VERY noisy DSLR in the D40) the image was crystal clear. Andromeda looked great as did the stars and color across the whole image. Obviously the preview screen was always bound to look better than the full-sized image but no glaring problems were obvious so I set “DSLR Shutter” to take a set of 12 ten minute subs and let it shoot. I went back out 2 hours later to find that battery hadn’t even drained 1/4 of the way (also a problem I had with series’ with the D40) and I now had 13 subs of M31. I took a few darks for good measure and brought them all in to check out.

D7000 Settings:

Before I get into the results of the evening I want to give you the settings and menus where I set those for the session. These are the only camera settings I changed, everything else was left to its default and no “in-camera noise reduction” was used.

Exposure:	M (Manual)	Roll wheel on top left of camera
ISO:	400	Press “ISO” button on left of preview screen, turn roll bar in front of shutter/on-off button
Image Quality:	NEF (RAW)	MENU->Shooting Menu->Image Quality
Shutter trigger:	Quick-Response Remote	Two places: Shooting Menu->Remote control mode->Quick Response Remote, Secondary roll wheel on top left of camera->remote picture
Shutter Speed:	BULB	Right thumb roll bar

Results:

They say a picture is worth a thousands words, so I will show these results I will start by showing you what a single 10 minute dark sub looked like. All I have done to this was convert it from RAW to a tiff file and then used levels to stretch it so you can see the noise pattern (otherwise it looked completely black at this size).The darks look pretty good to me, especially for a 10 minute sub. Once I combined the 6 I took after my session I had a nice Master Dark to use for calibration.

Before I did that I did a quick process of an uncalibrated single 10 minute sub of M31 just to get a “before”. This is a crop of the edge of the galaxy. No darks, flats, or bias frames and just a few processing steps comprised of levels and curves.

I was floored that even a single 10 minute sub with a mild amount of stretching had such little noise! Granted it was a cool evening (40 degrees fahrenheit) but the inherent noise of the D7000 is exponentially lower than the older D40. The noise was so low in the single stretched sub that I went ahead and did a stack of the uncalibrated subs. Hot pixel streaks were very minimal and in a pinch I believe I could even get away without shooting darks on a cool fall/winter imaging evening.

I did, however, apply the Master Dark to the subs before I brought them over to be de-Bayered, aligned, and stacked for the final processing. I used several programs to compare how the image looked from the raw stack (Registar, Maxim DL, and Nebulosity), all three came out looking fairly decent but I used the Maxim DL stack for the final process as I found it did a better job on the balance of colors from the Bayer matrix. I used solely Photoshop CS5 for the post-processing, although I do have several plug-ins in addition to my own action set that I use for the processing. I ended up not using any noise reduction in the final process.

Conclusions:

For a “first light” for the camera, astrophotography-wise, I would have to say that the D7000 has completely changed my opinion of DSLR astrophotography. Not only does the camera produce crisp, clean images that are relatively noise-free (at least compared to my previous experience with DSLR astrophotography), but the efficient use of the battery allows an evening of shooting without having to worry about the battery going out mid-exposure. As I had this only a fairly low ISO setting (400) I might have to try to shoot some fainter nebulosity with a higher ISO in the future and expand my DSLR astro-gallery. All in all - a great camera in the day or night that I would highly recommend.

Higher Res final image can be found here: http://www.eprisephoto.com/galaxy/h23732f43